The one may always be had in London, the other never could be had, were it not for Holborn Hill. Circumstances permitting, every city ought to be built on a hill; for reasons of morality, and therefore for reasons of state. No doubt, there is a certain agreeable monotony in levels, gentle gradients, and a perspicuous network of streets; they may even impose a wholesome contrast upon the minds of well-to-do citizens, who go “out of town.” But what of the ill-to-do citizen, who never leaves its walls? Not only do the bare hard streets present to him no natural thing, but with strait lines of brick on every side, a stony plane at his feet, and a flat dull roof over all, he gets no hint of a natural thing; and all that is artificial in him is hardened and encouraged. But suppose the city streets wind up and down and round about a hill? Then by no devices of brick or stone can you keep out the country. Then Nature defies your macadamization and your chimney stacks; it is impossible to forget her, or to escape her religious gaze. When did it occur to any ordinary person walking Bond Street, that once there had been turf there, and a running about of beetles? On the other hand, what man of any kind looks over the little Fleet valley to where Holborn Hill rises on the other side, without wondering how the houses came there--without feeling that they are only another sort of tents, pitched upon the earth for a time? “They, too, have to be struck,” says he, “and there is everywhere wandering away!”